Topics

A study of a special topic at an advanced level. This and all 300-level courses are small discussion classes. Descriptions of HIST 300 courses offered in a given semester are available on the History department Website or in the History department office prior to registration for that semester. May be repeated for credit with different topics.

Distribution Area

Prerequisites

Credits

1/2-1 course

Spring Semester information

Tineke D'Haeseleer

300A: Tps:Edge of Empire: China and its Neighbors

Chinese states had a complex relationship with their neighbors. There were violent conflicts and wars, but also cultural exchanges which left deep influences at the heart of Chinese society. But when most of our sources were written by Chinese people in Chinese, how close can we get to those people at the edge of the Chinese empire? Topics covered in this course include premodern China's interactions with Central Asia and the northern nomads, and the creation of the "Sino-sphere".

Sarah Rowley

300B: Tps:United States in the Seventies

American culture and politics underwent significant transformations in the 1970s. The post-WWII affluent era had ended, but what would be next? This course will explore the turbulent and contradictory decade, which nurtured both expanded social movements demanding rights on the one hand and, on the other, a powerful conservative backlash to liberalism as well as identity politics. We will look at both historical and scholarly sources that connect the cultural, political, social, international, and economic realms. Topics include disco, the Vietnam War and its memorialization, the sexual revolution, continuing conflicts over racial integration, deindustrialization, the energy crisis, evangelical Christianity, the Cold War, resurgent white ethnicity, Watergate, electoral politics, and feminism.